A safety problem exists when ventilated or wire-type shelves are used with standard vertical wall supports designed for home or office use. The wire shelves are not adequately anchored down by brackets designed for use with vertical wall supports; the wire shelves have a tendency to flip outward spilling the contents of the shelf and possibly causing injury.
Wire shelving systems are well known and are becoming increasingly popular. In the past, wire, or ventilated, shelves have been limited to industrial or commercial use such as in large refrigeration units, stock rooms and warehouses. The advantage of wire shelves is that they allow circulating air to reach the goods stacked on the shelves. The wire shelves designed for industrial or commercial applications are heavy-duty, free-standing structures or they may be securely bolted or attached to a wall. However, wire shelving units are not limited to industry use and are increasingly used in homes, not only for the ventilation advantages, but for aesthetic purposes as well.
There is an need for the development of a wire shelf unit compatible with standard vertical wall supports which have a column of slots for height adjustment. In these systems, two or more cantilever brackets provide support for a shelf. The brackets engage one or more slots in a vertical wall support. Because a series of slots extend from the top to the bottom of the vertical wall supports, the cantilever support brackets, and therefore the shelf itself, are height adjustable.
The aforenoted problem exists when standard cantilever support brackets are used in combination with wire shelves. If an excess amount of force or weight is applied to the front of the wire shelf, the shelf has a strong tendency to flip outward in a pivotal motion about the front edge of the shelf thereby spilling the contents of the shelf and possibly the shelf itself on the floor.
The possibility of wire shelves pivoting outward poses serious safety concerns. For one, it is common to use these shelves to store fairly heavy articles. Therefore, these heavy articles have the potential to cause serious injury to a consumer. Further, valuable items or fragile items such as glass may be stored on the shelves and may be destroyed if tipped forward onto the floor.
Therefore, an improved wire shelving system is needed to adequately secure the rear edge of the wire shelf to the bracket. While various methods for securing wire shelves to brackets are known, the known designs are fairly complicated to assemble and are therefore not ideal for home use. No known design combines the safety required with the ease of assembly demanded by modern consumers.